Will Baylor make the NCAA tournament or be forced to defend its NIT title?

Dallas Morning News | Feb 1

The days where Baylor was a top-10 team seem very, very distant.

The Bears are on a five-game skid and their current conference record is 1-6. They’ve yet to play Oklahoma State (a top-10 team) and will have to do so twice within a two-week span. If they were to lose to Oklahoma State tomorrow, the only Big 12 team they would have beaten in the first half of the Big 12 schedule is TCU.

So, can the Bears regroup themselves and make a push for the NCAA tournament?

ESPN’s bracketology expert Joe Lunardi says Baylor will be one of the first four teams out during the selection process. The following comes from his article, which can be found here.

The Bears suffered a truly crushing home loss to West Virginia on Tuesday. It’s not that the Mountaineers are terrible, it’s that Baylor has now dropped five straight Big 12 games (including three at home) to fall to 1-6 in the conference. With three of their next four coming on the road, how likely are the Bears to turn things around toward the nine or 10 conference victories needed for realistic at-large consideration?

Final verdict: Baylor misses the tournament with a sub-.500 conference record, negating nonleague wins over Kentucky and Colorado.

On the other hand, CBS Sports has Baylor playing in one of the final play-in games against Dayton. Jerry Palm explains what Baylor is up against below.

Baylor also isn’t that far removed from a top 10 ranking, but the Bears have lost five straight and six of seven and now find themselves projected in a play-in game in Dayton. That’s not the worst news. In the next eight days, they will play at Oklahoma State, at home against surging Kansas, and then at Oklahoma. That’s not exactly a tourniquet for their wounds.